Post Script: The Battle of Endor

[Tod Marr]

'Let's go fly a...what the frell!?'

A red blip flashed on Tod's HUD. Shadow Ten's locater flickered into norhing.

'Hey Razor, did you see that? Should we go and check it out?

[Val Torre]

"Negative, Shadow Twelve." Val said, through gritted teeth.

He stamped on his foot-yokes and the Fat Lady soared forward with increasing momentum. The orange light from the explosion faded and his cockpit was dark once more. His fingers tightened around the hand yokes and he pulled back, the wing pylons trembled, bringing his ship to a sudden dramatic climb towards the underbelly of the Mindflayer.

"We have a job to do. Five, Nine, Twelve; try to keep up! Let's escort that cruiser."

Behind him he heard the roar of engines and laser fire. His jaw clenched and he thumbed the voice comm.

"Shooter..." He hesitated, then took his finger off the button. "...frell!"

[Bette Davis]

Vance disappeared in a cloud of white and yellow fire, his shields immediately overloaded with the warhead the Defender pilot had hit him with. Shadow Six had peeled off and away from the path of the Defender, and Shooter and Dragon screamed in underneath him, giving chase to the rogue pilot.

"Frell Dragon don't ask me if you can shoot him! Slag that son of a bith!" The Maneater tore through space as Jackal brough his TIE around and formed up on her starboard wingtip.

Bette jabbed her thumb on her lasers, green fire lancing out towards the Defender. Unfortunately he was pulling away from them, arcing back towards the middle of the vast battlefield. "Don't lose him!"

The TIE pilot was flying straight towards Watcher Squadron.

[Ulrhik Godsend]

Ulrhik wanted to retort but he decided questions concerning protocol could wait under the circumstances. Clenching his teeth, Ulrhik diverted all power from his worthless, at least how he saw them, shields to his engines as he maintained course with Shooter but on a sharper angle. The Defender flashed across his sites as Dragon had anticipated and green lasers flashed against the shields of the defender but little more. The moment was over and Dragon could see that he wouldn't have another shot at the time as cross fire was about to become an issue.

"Shooter, incoming squadron, we have the lead but the pilot is heading right for them. Suggesting we pull off to prevent any collisions."

[Teleran Balades]

(OOC: I left out some info in my last post regarding the Mindflayer. She [U]is not[/I] an SD, she’s a carrack-class cruiser)

“Sir, Captain Kellison is sending Shadow Squadron to escort us in.”

Tel’s brow furrowed in confusion. Kellison? Who’s Kellison? I thought Farard was Captain of that ship. She must have taken a hit to the Command Deck. Once again Balades found himself relieved that his own carrack-class vessel had the bridge located deeper within her superstructure.

As Mindflayer limped on, the remaining ships of the 31st, a pair of gunships and a lone Lance-class Frigate, reformed around the damaged cruiser. Other crippled and lost ships drifted by, their commanders dead or cut off from communication. Hundreds of lifeless bodies littered space, many being haphazardly smashed into by debris and active vessels alike.

In an instant the morbid silence was broken when forward cameras showed a Defender blasting away at the Shadows and Watchers. An indignant cry arose from weary crew.

Tel whirled to face a makeshift weapons station, the motion leaving him slightly dizzy.

“How many guns do we have left?”

“…uhhh…..a turbolaser battery or two and about half our cannons.” A flushed ensign, replacing the dead weapons officer, looked nervously at Tel. “There’s a coolant leak in the capacitors, if we shoot, the guns might overload.”

The commander’s glare fixed on the traitor pilot darting among the Interceptors. “Frell” Tel shifted his eyes to a second screen showing the Osiris on Mindflayer’s starboard flank. The Lancer’s sole purpose was to wipe out starfighters. Her quadlaser towers could decimate a squadron in second, the only problem the turret’s limited range.

Tel opened a tight-beam transmission to the fighter squadrons. “Shadows and Watchers Osiris will engage.”

[Aliya Vahlshalynn]

"Right with ya Boss." Aliya brought her TIE in formation, following Val's lead. Unfortunately, the adrenaline rush would have to wait. Not an exciting job but escorting this cruiser was just as important. Orders were orders, and she kept her eyes peeled between her HUD and the situation outside in space incase anything new decided to try and drop in on them.

[Tannis V'larr]

Things happened ungodly fast in a dogfight. Watcher Squadron was screaming toward the fracas in a five-man diamond slot formation. Usually the sight of twenty guns facing in one direction was a deterrent to an advancing enemy, but this Defender wasn't thinking on such a high level. His six guns began spewing a hail of fire at the incoming squints--Banshee's fighter went up in an incandescent flash.

Tannis flinched at the loss of another pilot, but he held his tongue. He took an instant to glance at the tactical radar--Shadow squadron was peeling off to avoid a collision, but the rogue pilot seemed to have no such reservations. It did mean, however, that they were no longer in danger of friendly fire if the Watchers engaged.

"We're in the clear--break to starboard and open fire!"

There was a split-second window of opportunity. The space in front of Watcher Squadron filled with green rounds, but none of them struck more than a glancing blow. As the rogue pilot rocketed by, Tannis spun his fighter to port to keep the maverick in his sights and squeezed his trigger again--two, three more blasts struck the Defender's shields. The pilot veered away from the stinging hail of laserfire and back into the field of battle--exactly as Tannis wanted.

"Shadows--I suggest we corral him toward Osiris so she can bring her anti-fighter turrets to bear."

[Bette Davis]

Bette nodded, bringing her TIE around and to starboard, Shadows Eight and Six mirroring her moves. "Agreed, Watcher Lead. Dragon and Jackal, you heard the man. I'll lead him in, you two get his six. Work with the Watchers."

She accelerated, dropping her Interceptor nearly into the path of the incoming Defender. Angling her head, she saw him pass over her, and then he took the bait, swinging around and firing lasers at her.

Putting her TIE into a spin, she evaded and flew towards Osiris. It looked like he'd used up his last warhead on Ripper.

[Tod Marr]

Tod shifted restlesslty in his seat. He hated having to babysit people. If it were up to him, he'd abolish escort duty and commission some kind of automated fighter to do all the boring missions.

'This wouldn't be so bad if we had some speed. Can't that piece of crap move its wide load any quicker? I'm killing myself here!'

On his HUD, Tod noticed the rogue fighter was moving towards the Mindflayer, and its frigate escort was positioning itself between the two.

'Well at least we don't need to hold their hand.'

[Zachariah Jak'el]

Zachariah clicked his comm to confirm Davis' command and then fired his thrusters up to full. "Stay with me, Dragon" He issued over the comm as the two of them gained on the defender's tail. "That girl's crazy" He said to himself as he watched his supperior offier place herself in the defender's line of fire.

Zach cut his shields down to 50% and applied the energy left over to his thrusters. He finaly reached maximum firing range, but he still held his fire. Dragon could shoot as much as he wanted. He waited a few moments until the rogue fighter was flying straight for the moment and then he opened fire. A singe pair of green laser bolts connected with the defender but was repelled by its shields.

He let out a series of curses and opened up his lasers on the fighter. He had fogotten about the Defender's shields and he knew that single , accurate shots were not going to help here. He pressed his fingers down on the triggers and opened fire apon the defender but it's shields still held.

[Ulrhik Godsend]

Dragon tried to ignore Jackal while at the same time staying aware of him. His wingmate let forth a slew of green lasers that kept pressure on the defender's shields but was starting to lead Ulrhik to the conclusion that there might be more than one insane pilot out here. His comm opened to Jackal,

"Shadow Eight, cease fire. You're risking our Wing Commander."

Shooter was leading the defender on and Godsend had observed more than a few glancing lasers go her direction unintentionally from Jackal. They just needed to lure the defender to the Osiris. He switched his comm over to the Watcher Leader.

"This is Shadow Six to Watcher Lead. My wingmate and I have the pilot from his six, Shadow Three is leading him in. Let's not allow him out of this one."

Not to mention if Shooter died before the defender did, Ulrhik would blame the Watchers for taking their sweet time. One to lead, two to follow, and five hopefully closing in? Only Watcher Leader looked like he had enough skill to pull up on the defender.

[Tannis V'larr]

Tannis's bootleg maneuver had sacrificed a lot of speed. He gunned his engines, and his craft lurched against its own backwards momentum. He had no shields to take away from engine power, so he dumped his weapons energy into engines and fought the G-forces as his velocity climbed past the zero mark to full speed at nearly the theoretical limit of his ship's acceleration.

About three percent more acceleration, and he would've blacked out. Tannis liked to leave himself a small margin of error.

Now he was up to speed, but he still had a lot of distance to close between himself and the pursuit. His remaining three Watchers, meanwhile, hadn't decelerated at all and were pulling a lazy arc around the portside, trying to come about. They were practically out of the race now.

"Roger, Shadow Six, bringing my vessel to bear. However, may I respectfully submit to your wingleader that the odds of surviving an unchallenged pursuit by a TIE Defender are approximately thirty-five to one. Given the pilot's single-minded nature, I believe he may be confused if presented with mulitple targets, or at the least, multiple threats."

[Tod Marr]

Tod struck his helmet with his gloved hands several times. He screamed. The sound rang in his ears for a few seconds before dissipating fully. Escorting the crippled ship was painfully slow for Tod - he's Corellian. He had half a mind to fly off and do something else. The only problem was there was nothing else to do. With a sigh, he fingered the comm button.

'Permission to kill myself, Shadow Two!'

Maniac rested his head on the back of the chair.

[Aliya Vahlshalynn]

Aliya never found herself chuckling while in formation or on a run with her wing mates. Professionalism was key to her survival in the Imperial Navy. But she couldn't help laughing. Maniac was living up up to the reputation that his call sign suggested.

She flipped her own comm on.

"If it means I get a promotion outta this, I say agree to it Shadow Two."

[Bette Davis]

Bette ignored the comm chatter, concentrating on manuevering her Interceptor in front of the crazed Defender. She flipped switches, routing all power away from her forward shields and into the aft shields that were taking a beating from the Defender's lasers.

Turning a bit of attention back to the comm she yelled, "Shadow Three to Osiris, we're coming in hot on your two! Repeat, we are coming in hot!" Bette spiraled up and angled in towards the Lancer frigate, the Defender screaming in behind her, nearly on top of the Maneater.

"Shadows - don't follow too closely! That frigate could accidentally vape you all." She knew her only hope in distancing herself would be to pull a wacky evasive manuever and hope that the Defender pilot wouldn't be able to compensate in time.

[Teleran Balades]

Tel watched Shadow squadron herd the rogue Defender towards the Osiris. The pilot was either to focused on the fighters swarming around him, or was too caught up in whatever frenzy caused him to turn traitor, to notice the ever growing bulk of the boxy frigate.

For a moment he thought why a Tie Defender pilot, a coveted position among the Fighter Corp, would betray the Empire. Perhaps he or she was a rebel. Either way, the only thing that pilot will get is a swift death.

“What the Frell. He’s accelerating.” Sure enough the Defender pilot picked up it’s pace, accelerating straight towards the frigate. “The guy’s suicidal.”

Tel stared at the oncoming fighter, trying to track her vector Damit; he’s trying to cut the gun-tower angles. The pilot would probably try and skim the hull of the Osiris to force the gunners to crank their turrets to their maximum angles

“Shadows get out of there, now.”

With only a second's hesitation, twenty quadlaser turrets opened fire.

[Zachariah Jak'el]

Zachariah ceased firing and simply followed close behind the rogue fighter as they herded it towards the Osiris. “Shadows get out of there, now.” A voice crackled over the comm. Zach pulled back on the yoke and sent his ship into a vertical climb that pinned him against the repulsor couch. He left the line of fire just as the Osiris' cannon's opened fire.

He slowed down and leveled out his fighter. He turned it to face where he had last seen the Defender but all he could see was the green laser bolts that flew from the Osiris.

[Ulrhik Godsend]

Ulrhik heard the command from whomever and not a moment later, a barrage of energy had lit up the vicinity in which his TIE was about to enter. He began heavy evasive maneuvers, ripping his Interceptor upwards as he danced around a column of fatal energy. A scream let loose on the comm but Dragon paid no mind. Survival was key and his odds of it were rapidly diminishing. He pulled a hard turn to starboard and his Interceptor rolled out of the danger zone. He turned on an edge to come around and view what would remain of the TIE defender but was shocked to see that it was still managing. At least for another parsec.

"The Emperor ca-"

The comm fuzzed as the defender was knocked to one side and a lance of green shattered the cockpit in the center. The engines combusted and Dragon checked the radar. A Watcher had been caught in the cross fire. One always had to die, it did not matter what was going on, whether it was a training exercise or a full blown massacre. One TIE pilot always died. Dragon had never seen otherwise.

"Shadow Six, reporting, target destruction confirmed."

[Travis North]

Rails watched the rear sensor closely as the target disappeared and the confirmation came through. He quickly turned his attention back to scanning the debris.

The sleek Interceptor trailed along the darkened, scarred, hull of an MC80. The CMD display showed minimal systems, no shields and critical damage. Raan scanned the viewport for the crippled leviathan's starboard hanger, it was there intact but inactive from his current angle. It didn't mean that a starfighter or two weren't hiding inside.

He opened up the flight channel, "Five, I got nothing form the outside of the cruiser. I'm going to make run by the hanger and take a look inside. Stilletto can you watch my back."

[Val Torre]

Upon confirmation of the defender having been destroyed, Val closed his eyes and signed.

"Good work, Shadows."

For a moment, Val stared out of his viewport to where he could see the glowing remains of the defender drifting in all directions. He smashed his fist against the control console, then toyed with his sensors.

"Shadow Three, could you take your wing in the opposite direction to Wing One and check that area out? Wing One, keep up your search. My wing, we stick with the Mindflayer" He said, with a hint of resentment.